World Book Night!

Happy World Book Night/ St. George's Day and Happy Birthday to The Bard, Mr. William Shakespeare!

I rarely need an excuse to shamelessly promote reading to as many people as I possibly can. World Book Night is one of those occasions where I take my babbling off the screen, and out on to the streets of Birmingham.

I've been lucky enough to be a giver for the second year running, and this time saw me giving out 20 copies of 'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stevenson. (You can find my review for it here.)
Prepping for the evening is the least exciting bit of the process, but I found myself making little gifts out of the books. Which included little skull-and-cross-bones tags* (pictured), and small handwritten notes on the wrapping paper. Not tooting my own horn, but I would have loved to receive one of my own books this evening!

4pm came far too quickly, but I found myself more than ready to spread the word of literature like pixie dust. Conclusion: The people of Birmingham believe in books! We had the most perfect weather, and I'm sure that made people far more agreeable and open to listen to me. I found myself completely out of books in just under two hours! I still had more than enough time to have a nice conversation with a few of the people I spoke with. It was a beautiful thing, and has topped up my faith in the world of first time readers. And in my city of course.

World Book Night posted an interesting request via their social media pages, asking everyone to update their statuses to, "I love reading because..." At first I found it difficult to put into words just why I love reading, and literature generally.
I feel after my giving today, I feel more would say that I love reading because it's concrete evidence that magic exists in the world.

I hope you all enjoyed your World Book Night as much as I did in whichever way you decided to celebrate. I will now conclude off my evening with some light reading, followed by some heavier reading.

Be sure to follow World Book Night on Twitter, for information about their future events and how to apply to be a giver in 2014.

Happy Reading!
- Kaveeta

* The skull tags were made by my incredibly talented crafty friend Emma. She really is brilliant, if you love these tags, I would strongly recommend checking out and liking her Facebook Pages, here and here. You can also follow her on Twitter.